The Indian Express                23.04.2013

Civic body may collect LBT in Pune Cantt limits too

Even as traders in the city have started their two-day strike against the imposition of local body tax (LBT), neighbouring Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has made a substantial progress on implementing the new tax regime. In all likelihood, the collection of LBT in PCB limits will be carried out by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

A release issued by the board on Monday said a meeting was convened by Pune Municipal Commissioner recently where the Chief

Executive Officers of Cantonment Boards discussed the new tax regime.

"The Municipal Commissioner said that as per the Section 49 of the Cantonment Act there is a provision for aggregate area. Also, as per the Section 32 of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, PMC may be allowed to collect LBT in Cantonment on a revenue sharing basis based on the ratio of population or the amount of business transacted, whichever is higher," the release said.

The release added, "CEO of PCB said that if the civic body formally gives such a proposal, it will be placed before the board besides obtaining sanction from the higher authorities. As of now, no proposal has been sent to PCB. Action to implement LBT as decided by the board is in progress and it will soon appeal to all dealers/firms/ companies to register themselves."

Newsline has been reporting on the progress made by PCB in implementing the new tax regime. Being a local body, PCB has resolved to impose LBT as per Section 66(2) of the Cantonment Act, 2006. The board has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Law seeking imposition of tax as per the rules followed by the state government.

The implementation of LBT comes at the cost of abolishing octroi, which was a major source of revenue for the cantonment boards.

Meanwhile, the two-day bandh called by traders associations to protest against the implementation of LBT evoked mixed response in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. While the big shops downed shutters, smaller and medium shops were seen operating.

District Collector Vikas Deshmukh said they did not take any action against traders as the shops and markets were open on Sunday. "As the bandh is for a limited time, we did not take any action," said Deshmukh.

The Pioneer                 23.04.2013

Short-staffed RMC to outsource tax collection

On the first day of February this year, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation had taken a ‘revolutionary’ step, introducing a dedicated van for holding tax collection. It is equipped with a WLL number 2100164 and receives request from common men for paying holding taxes. The van then moves to their doors and collect tax.

Now here is another peculiar move of the RMC. The civic body is mulling to outsource the responsibility of collecting holding taxes to private organisation. The tender for the same will be floated soon.

“A decision to this effect was taken in the last meeting of the standing committee of RMC. Now we are planning to outsource it to private organizations. But before we do that we have to get some documentation done. We are preparing a database of all holding tax payers and the amount of the taxes due on them. After preparing relevant database, we will outsource it to private organisation,” said Deputy Administrator of RMC Shailendra Kumar Lal.

The private agencies however will not have the power to create holding. Because there are many technical issues associated with this, according to the Deputy Administrator. Within three months they will start collecting holding taxes.

With this announcement of outsourcing the responsibility of collecting holding taxes to private parties, there are at least two of civic body’s responsibilities - including the holding taxes - that have been outsourced.

Earlier, about two years back, the civic body had outsourced the responsibility of ensuring the cleanliness of Ranchi to a private waste management firm A2Z. The company has been under perennial criticism for its less then adequate services.

Do these two steps indicate that the civic body is choosing to withdraw itself from various responsibilities by outsourcing them? And also do they suggest that the civic body in future may outsource other responsibilities also?

RMC’s PRO Naresh Sinha replied to the questions saying that the body had no option but to outsource the responsibility. He also hinted that there might be many more outsourcing of responsibilities.

“We are acutely short-staffed. We have only 36 tax collectors to look after 55 wards –this implies every tax holder has to deal with around 4,000 houses. We have only one zonal supervisor to look after the

two zones (city is divided into two tax collection zones). He is due to retire in June. We have only two revenue assistants who look after many

departments simultaneously. And with people of city being as non-cooperative as they are we have no option but to outsource the responsibility of collecting holding taxes,” he said.

He also said that the government had disallowed recruitment of personnel at RMC and not less than 50 staffs are retiring on yearly basis. With such scenario it is natural to expect outsourcing many other responsibilities.